t first sight, a handsome lad, glowing with youth and the
excitement of his run, and, as the father looked at him, he could
see the likeness to his mother in his clear-cut features, and even a
resemblance to himself in his square, compact chest and shoulders and
crisp, black curls. A thrill of purely animal paternity passed over him,
the fierce joy of his flesh over his own flesh! His own son, by God!
They could not take THAT from him; they might plot, swindle, fawn,
cheat, lie, and steal away his affections, but there he was, plain to
all eyes, his own son, his very son!

"Come here," he said in a singular, half-weary and half-protesting
voice, which the boy instantly recognized as his father's accents of
affection.

The boy hesitated as he stood on the edge of the road and pointed with
mingled mischief and fastidiousness to the depths of impalpable red
dust that lay between him and the horseman. Steptoe saw that he was very
smartly attired in holiday guise, with white duck trousers and patent
leather shoes, and, after the Spanish fashion, wore black kid gloves. He
certainly was a bit of a dandy, as he had said. The father's whole face
changed as he wheeled and came before the lad, who lifted up his arms
expectantly. They had often ridden together on the same horse.

"No rides to-day in that toggery, Eddy," he said in the same voice. "But
I'll get down and we'll go and sit somewhere under a tree and have some
talk. I've got a bit of a job that's hurrying me, and I can't waste
time."

"Not one of your old jobs, father? I thought you had quite given that
up?"

The boy spoke more carelessly than reproachfully, or even wonderingly;
yet, as he dismounted and tethered his horse, Steptoe answered
evasively, "It's a big thing, sonny; maybe we'll make our eternal
fortune, and then we'll light out from this hole and have a gay time
elsewhere. Come along."

He took the boy's gloved right hand in his own powerful grasp, and
together they clambered up the steep hillside to a rocky ledge on which
a fallen pine from above had crashed, snapped itself in twain, and then
left its withered crown to hang half down the slope, while the other
half rested on the ledge. On this they sat, looking down upon the road
and the tethered horse. A gentle breeze moved the treetops above their
heads, and the westering sun played hide-and-seek with the shifting
shadows. The boy's face was quick and alert with all that moved round
him, but withou